We were going to call this blog “people we meet in the shower” - but not everyone we work with is the result of a shower conversation - just most of them.
It was around the end of Summer 2019 that we bumped into Hannah in the shower. She liked the swimsuit I was wearing and when it’s a swimsuit you’ve made yourself there’s no nicer compliment.
In the interests of being environmentally friendly and not taking the longest shower ever we decided to catch up for a coffee at our place to chat about the Usual Objections journey and Hannah’s own journey with The Blobcast.
Hannah no doubt thought we were slightly crazy and the same was probably true for us of her, but isn’t that where all the fun stuff happens?
We explained the story of how we got started, our love for swimming, our love for making swimwear.
Hannah explained how she was trying to raise awareness of menstrual health including swimming and staying active while menstruating - which are still both social taboos to a lot of people. She also explained how she’d had this idea for a swimsuit for a long time but didn’t really know how to get started with it.
At that point the light bulb flickered and we said - of course we’d love to help!
Apart from a love of swimming and sewing, the main reason we wanted to start Usual Objections was to give back as much as we can. To help people start things and work on fun projects with nice people. So this was a perfect match.
It’s a shame for women in sport and that in general menstruation remains a stigmatised subject.
The Olympics of 2016 highlighted this issue when competitor Fu Yuanhui told reporters her period had started the previous day when asked about her team finishing fourth in the 4x100m medley relay. Yuanhui made headlines for breaking the silence, though there’s no doubt that it can affect all female athletes, from amateurs to endurance racers. Their menstruation can impact their athletic performance to them avoiding the pool entirely.
Together with The Blobcast we hope this suit will play a small part in starting more conversations around menstruation, swimming and women in sport.
How do you go about making a Blob swimsuit? Well, first there is the coffee of course. Then Hannah made a few beautiful sketches that we looked over.